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SLAVERY 



AND THE 



DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE, 



IN 



THE UNITED STATES. 



BY THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY THE LATE YEARLY 
MEETING OF FRIENDS HELD IN PHILADELPHIA, IN 

1839. 






PHILADELPHIA: 

PRINTED BY MERRHIEW AND THOMPSON, 

No. 7 Carter's Alley. 

1841 



1*1 is 



i*> 



ON SLAVERY, &c 



Slavery is the exercise of arbitrary power, vested in one 
man over another, by the sanction of law, or common usage; 
extending, in some cases, to the taking of life, as among the 
ancient Romans ; and in others, accompanied by certain re- 
straints, imparting to it a mild and lenient character, as 
that which prevailed among the Israelites. Hence, the re- 
cords of history exhibit this institution among the nations 
of antiquity, in different degrees of severity, between these 
two extremes. The term slavery, therefore, furnishes us 
with no just conceptions of the amount of evil embraced 
by it, and it becomes necessary in order to arrive at this 
knowledge, to inquire into its character in each particular 
case or nation. 

In justification of this institution in the United States, it 
is alleged, that slavery has existed in every age of the 
world : that the scriptures lend it their unqualified sanc- 
tion ; that the slavery now existing on the continent of 
Africa is in its character more rigorous than that in the 
United States ; and hence, that the condition of the natives 
brought from that country, has been improved by the ex- 
change. As these arguments intrude upon us at the thres- 
hold, we will give them a brief consideration, before enter-' 
ing upon the main subject of this treatise. 

Under the Mosaic dispensation, a Hebrew might be de- 



I dived of his freedom in several ways. In extreme poverty 
he could sell himself, and a father his children in a like 
case. Lev. xxv. 39. Exod. xxi. 7. Debtors were liable 
to become the bondmen of their creditors. 2 Kings iv. 1. 
If a thief was unable to pay the penalty of his crime, he 
was directed to be sold. Exod. xxii. 3. A Hebrew, ran- 
somed by a Hebrew, might be sold by the latter. In all 
these cases they were bought as hired servants, and the 
term of servitude was limited to six years. Exod. xxi. 2. 

The case of the Gibeonites was peculiar, and occasioned 
by a fraud practised by them upon Joshua, to secure a 
treaty. " Wherefore have ye beguiled us, saying, ' we are 
very far from you,' when ye dwell amorg us? Now, 
therefore, ye are cursed, and there shall none of you be 
freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood, and 
drawers of water for the house of my God." Joshua xix. 
22, 23. The disgrace and hardship of this servitude, how- 
ever, do not appear to have consisted in the laboriousness 
of the service itself, but in degrading the Gibeonites, by de- 
priving them of the characteristic employment of men, and 
substituting that which custom left to women and children.* 
As a nation, they lost their independence, and were oblig- 
ed to furnish a levy of men for the Hebrew service. 

In case of a Hebrew servant marrying a stranger, a 
Canaanite, for instance, (for so the passage in Exod. xxi. 
4, must be understood,) the husband went out free in the 
seventh year, but his wife and children remained servants 
to the master. A humane provision is here made, how- 
ever, to prevent the severing of conjugal and parental ties. 
" But if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, 
my wife, and my children, I will not go out free ;" he could 
not then be separated from his family ; but his ear was 

* See Harman on the text. 



bored through with an awl, in evidence of his having cho- 
sen to live with them in a state of servitude. Bxod. I 

The Hebrew man and maid servant, who chose to remain 
with the master, were treated in like manner. Deut. w. l ~, . 
Having thus briefly set forth the ground and origin of 
the servile state among the posterity of Abraham, we 
proceed to give a summary of its principal features, 
follows: 

1. The time of servitude of a Hebrew was limited, at 
most, to six years ; and all others were release! in the year 
of Jubilee, and in addition, had the lands of their ancestors 
restored to them. "Then shalt thou cause the trumpetofthe 
Jubilee to sound" — "and ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, 
and proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the 
inhabitants thereof y Levit. xxv. 10. 

2. The Hebrew servant received a compensation for his 
services. " And when thou sendest him out free fromthee, 
thou shalt not let him go away empty; thou shalt furnish 
him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out 
of thy wine-press, of that wherewith the Lord thy God 
hath blessed thee ; thou shalt give unto him." Deut. xv. 
13, 14. 

3. Oppression and cruelty to servants, in all cases, arc 
strictly forbidden, and anxiously guarded against through- 
out the Law and the Prophets, the Israelites being often 
reminded of their having been strangers, and under bond- 
age in the land of Egypt. Deut. xv. 15. 

4. The master was compelled to keep his servant ; he 
could not turn him off, or otherwise dispose of him, if he 
chose to stay with him. Infirmity, age, or disability, ap- 
pears to have made no exceptions to this rule. Bxod. xxi. 
Deut. xv. 

5. The servant, on the other hand, could escape from 

1* 



6 

under oppression or cruelty, without the fear of pursuit, or 
compulsory return ; " Thou shalt not deliver unto his mas- 
ter, the servant which is escaped from his master unto 
thee ; he shall dwell with thee, even among you in that 
place which he shall choose, in one of thy gat^s where it 
liketh him best ; thou shalt not ojypress him." Deut. xxiii. 
15, 16. 

6. The servant was admitted into covenant with God, 
and was instructed at stated times, in morality and reli- 
gion. Deut.xxix. 11, 12. xxxi. 12. Josh. viii. 35. 2 Chron. 
xvii. examine 9th verse. 

7. In all the Jewish festivals, the servant feasted and 
rejoiced in common with the master ; " And thou shalt re- 
joice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and 
thy man servant, and thy maid servant, and the Levite, and 
the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are 
within thy gates." Deut. xvi. 14. 

8. These festivals were so numerous, that if we include 
the sabbath and sabbatical year, it will be found that the 
servant enjoyed a period of relaxation from regular labor, 
amounting to nearly one-half of his whole time. 

Such is a brief view of slavery as it existed under the 
Mosaic dispensation ; partaking more of the character of 
a patriarchal government than of slavery ; and on the 
part of the servant, more a matter of choice than of com- 
pulsion. 

Among the barbarous and idolatrous nations of antiquity, 
their slaves consisted generally of prisoners, taken in wars 
with neighboring tribes, and were treated in some instances, 
with great cruelty ; yet, even here, slavery possessed 
some features, which softened its rigor, and blunted its as- 
perity. Among the Egyptians, the slave found in the temple 
of Hercules, a secure retreat from the iron rod of his mas- 



ter, and held the right of obtaining- his discharge.* The 
bondage of the children of Israel appears to have originat- 
ed from a fear of their numbers, rather than from a spirit 
of avarice or injustice. Exod. i. 10, 11. 

According to the history, a part of the nation only was 
under " task masters," and that part consisting chiefly of 
the male sex, raised, as it would seem, by a levy or con- 
scription. They had their separate lands, houses, &c, in 
the rich province of Goshen, and possessed flocks and herds, 
and " very much cattle ;" and hence, although tributary, 
had the advantages of a distinct community, with its own 
form of government and internal rule. Those who were 
under task-masters were doubtless made to serve with 
" rigor," but they were not stinted in food ; they " sat by 
the flesh-pots, and did eat bread to the full." " We re- 
member," said they, "the fish which we did eat in Egypt 
freely, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, and the onions, 
and the garlic." Exod. xvi. 3. Numb. xi. 5. 

But not only the Old, but the New Testament is appeal- 
ed to, in support of American slavery. The following is 
extracted from the American Quarterly Review, No. 23, 
page 248, published in 1832. 

" When we turn to the New Testament, we find not one 
single passage, at all calculated to disturb the conscience 
of an honest slaveholder. No one can read it without 
seeing and admitting that the meek and humble Saviour of 
this world, in no instance meddled with the established in- 
stitutions of mankind — he came to save a fallen world, and 
not to excite the black passions of men, and array them in 
deadly hostility against each other. From no one did he 
turn away ; his plan was offered alike to all — to the mo- 
narch and the subject — the rich and the poor — the master 

* Rees' Cyclopedias. 



8 

and the slave. He was born in the Roman world, a world 
in which the most galling slavery existed — a thousand 
times more cruel than the slavery of our own country — 
and yet he no where encourages insurrection — he no where 
fosters discontent, — but exhorts always to implicit obe- 
dience and fidelity. What a rebuke does the Redeemer of 
mankind imply upon the conduct of some of his nominal 
disciples of the day, who seek to destroy the contentment 
of the slaves, to rouse their most deadly passions, to break 
up the deep foundations of society, and to lead on to a 
night of darkness and confusion ! ' Let every man, (says 
Paul) abide in the same calling wherein he is called. Art 
thou called, being a servant ? — care not for it ; but if thou 
may est be made free, use it rather.' 1 Corinth, vii. 20, 21. 
Again : ' Let as many servants as are under the yoke, 
count their own masters worthy of double honor, that the 
name of God and his doctrines be not blasphemed ; and 
they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, 
because they are brethren, but rather do them service, be- 
cause they are faithful and beloved partakers of the bene- 
fit. These things teach and exhort.' 1 Tim. vi. 1 — 11. 
Servants are even commanded in Scripture to be faithful 
and obedient to unkind masters. Servants, (says Peter) be 
subject to your masters with all fear ; not only to the good 
and gentle, but to the fro ward. For what glory is it, if 
when ye shall be buffetted for your faults, ye take it pa- 
tiently? but if when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take 
it patiently — this is acceptable to God.' 1 Peter, xi. 18 — 20. 
These and many other passages in the New Testament 
convincingly prove, that slavery in the Roman world, was 
no where charged as a fault or crime upon the holder, and 
every where is the most implicit obedience enjoined. See 
Ephes. vi. 5 — 9. Titus, xi. 9, 10. Philemon, Cclossians, iii. 
22, and iv. 1." 



9 

We agree with this writer when he says, that our Lord 
meddled with none of the institutions of his time, civil or 
political, as such; but had He condemned some and not 
others, or had He been silent only on that of slavery ; the 
author would then have had a plausible ground for the broad 
conclusion which he has drawn ; but having " meddled 
with none" of them, corrupt, and opposed to the religion 
which He taught, as many of them certainly were, we are 
obliged to seek another reason for this silence, than that of 
a tacit justification " of Roman slavery," and more espe- 
cially if it was, as the writer asserts, " a thousand times 
more cruel than the slavery of our own country !" 

The doctrine and precepts taught by our Lord, indicate 
the kind of reform contemplated, and afford an ample illus- 
tration of the reason why he refrained from an open and 
outward opposition to the corrupt institutions of that period. 
He taught that all sin and corruption proceed from the 
heart of man, as their root, and here he laid the gospel 
axe. Matt. xii. 35. Mark, iii. 10. Luke, iii. 9. The re- 
form was to be radical, and not merely a lopping of the 
branches of the corrupt tree. Thus, with spiritual wea- 
pons — his word, power, spirit, he attacked sin in its throne, 
the heart, whence proceeds all unrighteousness. Mark vii. 
20. And the tree being made good, the fruit will be good 
also. Matt. vii. 17, 18. xxi. 33. Again, when he says, 
" Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye even so to them," he strikes at the 
root of all cruelty, injustice and oppression. See Matt. vii. 
12. And again, he removes, at once, the causes of war, 
strife, and contention, when he enjoins obedience to the 
precepts, " Resist not evil — overcome evil with good — love 
your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them 
that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use 



10 

you, and persecute you. Matt v. 39 to 48. Romans 
xii. 21. 

To the author's assertion that the New Testament "con- 
clusively proves that slavery in the Roman world was no 
where charged a.o a fault or crime upon the holder, we re- 

pty : 

1. No evidence is adduced to prove that the servants 
addressed by the apostles were slaves. 

2. If they were slaves, the " implicit obedience enjoin- 
ed," no more proves slavery to be just and right, than 
the command to " return good for evil," proves the latter 
not to be evil, or that cursing and hatred imply no sin, be- 
cause to be requited by blessing and love. The advice 
given to the servants, was given to them, not as servants 
merely, but as Christians, because in accordance with the 
precepts of Christ, which are obligatory upon all his follow- 
ers, whatever may be their condition in life, or from what- 
ever quarter cruelty and persecutions may arise ; hence 
they belong to the master equally with the servant. 

3. Thus Paul, after exhorting servants to obedience, 
adds : " knowing that whatsoever good thing any man 
doeth, the same he shall receive of the Lord, whether he 
be bond or free. And ye masters do the same things unto 
them, (the servants) forbearing threatening; knowing that 
ye also have a Master in heaven : neither is there respect 
of persons with him." Ephes. vi. 8, 9. Again, " Masters 
give unto your servants that which is just and equal, 
knowing that ye also have a master in heaven." Collos. iv. 
1. And further, the same apostle in sending back Onesi- 
mus, whom he had converted to the Christian faith, to his 
master Philemon, writes to the latter to " receive him, not 
now as a servant, but as above a servant, a brother belov- 



11 

ed specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in 
the flesh and in the Lord." Philemon. 

4. The gospel is love, tenderness, peace and good will 
to men. Its whole spirit is opposed to American slavery. 
Even under the preceding dispensation, which was "but as 
a shadow of good things to come," miracles were wrought 
to redeem a nation from bondage, bringing heavy judg- 
ments on their oppressors. How much less can it be tolerated 
under the gospel 1 The following pages show that negro 
bondage, with the domestic slave traffic, in this country in- 
flict upon human beings a degree of cruelty, injustice, and 
oppression, seldom equalled even in the pagan world, — 
bring down its victims almost to a level with the brute, — is 
highly corrupting to its authors — and destructive to every 
interest. How is it possible for a sound mind to entertain 
the thought for a moment, that a system replete with such 
a mass of iniquity is so far justified by the scriptures that 
not " a single passage" can be found there " at all calcu- 
lated to disturb the conscience of an honest slaveholder ?" 
Yet the crimes which constitute its essence, and without 
which it could not have a name to live, to wit : avarice, 
cruelty, injustice and oppression, are every where con- 
demned in both the Old and the New Testament, (more 
especially the latter) as among the most offensive in the 
catalogue of sins ! ! This fact is so universally known and 
acknowledged, that it is not necessary to refer to texts to 
prove it. 

It is in vain, therefore, for any, in this age of gospel 
light, when " God is calling upon man, every where, to re- 
pent," to attempt to cover these crimes under false pre- 
tences; their hope is the hope of the hypocrite, that shall per- 
ish. Job viii. 13. It is the duty of all Christians to testify 
against them, whether they exist in the relation of master 



12 

and slave, or elsewhere. But in an especial manner does 
it behoove those who stand in the station of ministers of 
the most just, most equal, and most merciful religion of 
Jesus Christ, to abide faithful in their calling, and to " cry 
aloud and spare not." 

Does the fear or favor of man, the love of ease, or of 
filthy lucre, cause some to shrink from the discharge of 
those highest and most imperative of ministerial duties 1 
We fear that there are not a few amons the different de- 
nominations of Christians, who, girded, professedly, with 
the linen Ephod, are unfaithful to the high trust ; and 
even some who despise not " the gain of oppressions," nor 
shake their hands " from holding of bribes." Great, we 
fear, will be the condemnation of such. In vain may they 
answer the Son of man, saying; " Lord, when saw we 
thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or 
sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee ?" The 
reply must remain to be, " Verily I say unto you, inas- 
much as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it 
not unto me." Matt. xxv. 45. 

By the laws of Minos, King of Crete, cruelty and in- 
justice to slaves were prohibited, and their masters were 
required, once in the year, namely, at the feast of Mer- 
cury, to exchange situations with their slaves, for whom 
they performed the same servile offices, during the remain- 
der of the year, which they (the masters) were accustomed 
to receive.* 

At Athens, the slaves were treated with so much hu- 
manity, that it was a saying of Demosthenes, that " the 
condition of a slave at Athens was preferable to that of a 
free citizen in other countries." When maltreated, they 
found a refuge in the temple of Theseus, where the Legis- 

* Morelle. 



13 

lature inquired into, and redressed their wrongs. They 
were allowed the important privilege of working for them- 
selves, amassing property, and purchasing their freedom.* 

The Helots, in Sparta, were public slaves, and barbar- 
ously treated. They farmed the lands of the proprietors 
at a certain rent, inferior to the produce, and which 
it was deemed disgraceful to increase. Possessing the 
means of acquiring property, they became rich, and being 
numerous, were insolent and difficult to govern ; and from 
this cause, it is said, were often treated with great cruelty. 
They could not be'sold out of the small state of Laconia.f 
By new services they might be advanced to the rank of 
citizens. The state of servitude among the ancient Ger- 
mans seldom incurred corporal infliction, chains, or oppres- 
sion ; and was limited to furnishing the master with a cer- 
tain quantity of the produce made by the slave. 

The slaves of the Romans were of all nations and com- 
plexions. They held the power of life and death over their 
slaves, but they held the same power over their own child- 
ren ; a power not possessed by any other nation. They 
treated their slaves with the greatest cruelty, which, as the 
barbarous state gave place to one more civilized, was re- 
strained by humane laws, as under the emperor Hadrian, 
and his successors. Yet some mitigating circumstances 
were attached to slavery, even among the Romans; The 
slave had the anticipation of liberty, the privilege conferred 
on him by the master, of amassing property, called the 
slave's peculium, with which he was permitted to trade, to 
improve his condition, and often to purchase his freedom. 
He could also fly to temples as sanctuaries, to drag him 
from which was deemed sacrilege. His master did not 

* Kees' Cyclopedice. f Ibid- 



14 

fear to instruct him, and Atticus, Crassus, Virgil, Msece- 
nus, &c, manifested much anxiety for the education ol 
their slaves. 

In our inquiries into the present state of slavery in Afri- 
ca, we shall not attempt to reconcile the contradictory 
statements of different travellers and writers, on this sub- 
ject ; but shall avail ourselves at once, of the best testi- 
mony upon record ; namely : that rendered before the 
British House of Commons, pending the discussion in that 
body, of the abolition of the African slave trade. 

Governor Barnes, who resided thirteen years in Africa, 
testified, " that house slaves were not sold, except for 
crimes ;" — " the slaves of black masters are very well fed, 
except in famines, with corn and fish. They are not work- 
ed for any regular time, nor constantly, and never under 
the whip." 

J. B. Weuves, Esq., who resided fourteen years in Afri- 
ca, testified, that " slaves are the greatest part of their 
wealth. There are born slaves, and purchased slaves. 
The born slaves cannot be sold except for crimes. They 
are tried by judges of their own clan, i. e., slaves belong- 
ing to, and inherited by one man, The punishment is gen- 
erally slavery. They are made slaves for theft, witch- 
craft, &c. For these crimes, freemen are also made 
slaves." 

To comprehend how those who are already slaves can 
be punished for crimes as freemen are punished by being 
reduced to slavery, we must, of necessity, infer that the 
domestic slave in Africa, is himself essentially a freeman. 

Captain Wilson testified, that " the slaves employed by 
the Africans, live with their masters, and are so treated as 
to be scarcely distinguishable from them." 

J. Kicrman, who was about four years in Africa* testi- 



15 

fied, that " persons of property there, have a great num- 
ber of persons under the denomination of slaves, whom 
they trust as Europeans would persons of their own fami- 
ly." 

Z. Macauley, formerly governor of Sierra Leone, testi- 
fied before the house of Lords, as follows : 

" I have frequently made the attempt to ascertain the 
proportion which the slaves in that country bear to the 
freemen. I made it an object in every place that I hap- 
pened to visit ; but so much alike in their appearance, in 
their treatment, and in the conduct observed towards them, 
are the domestic slaves in that country and the freemen, 
that I found it impracticable, unless I went to make indi- 
vidual investigation, to ascertain that proportion." " I 
was never able to discriminate between the son and the 
domestic slave of any chief." " Field labor is performed 
by free people, and by the domestic slaves jointly and in- 
discriminately." 

We might go on to quote further evidence to the same 
effect, but enough is presented to silence the argument, 
that the African improved his condition, in exchanging the 
slavery of his own country for that of the New World. 

About the close of the 13th century, the Christian reli- 
gion put an end to slavery in most parts of Europe. A 
religion which plainly inculcates equality of rights, duties, 
and destiny, for all the children of men without distinction, 
and which makes them equally the objects of Divine be- 
nevolence and regard, cannot fail, when its doctrines and 
principles are reduced to practice to eradicate an evil 
which they so manifestly condemn. But two centuries, 
however, had scarcely elapsed, before a great falling off 
was experienced ; and a traffic in human beings was in- 
troduced among the nations of Christendom, bearing a 



16 

character for oppression and cruelty, more aggravated in 
iniquity, than any that the world had ever before witnessed ! 
The Portuguese nation became first engaged in the African 
slave trade, and other nations soon followed the example. 
In 1620, a Dutch ship, freighted with its living cargo of 
misery, sailed up the James river, from the coast of 
Guinea, and brought the first slaves into British America. 
England came in afterwards for her full share of the trade; 
despatched her ships in great numbers to Africa, and load- 
ing them with the unoffending inhabitants, poured these 
victims of her avarice and cruelty into her West Indian 
and American possessions. The government at home was 
applied to, to stop the importation — but in vain. The 
thirst for gold prevailed ; and the institution of negro 
slavery became thus established in the American Colonies. 
1. Negro slavery as it exists in the United States, bears 
a character, in some respects, unknown among the ancients, 
where the master and bondman were generally of the same 
race, both black, or both white. Here the parties are of 
different races, and that difference generally strongly mark- 
ed by the color of the skin ; hence, the degradation attend- 
ant on this condition has become associated, however erro- 
neously, with the African complexion ; and more or less 
of prejudice or aversion toward the whole colored race, 
finds an entrance into the mind through this medium. In 
the South, every colored person is considered and treated 
as a slave until the contrary is proved. And in the North, 
although not deemed a slave, he is generally treated as 
one inheriting the degradation attached to the servile state. 
Thus the color of his skin marks him out for proscription. 
What strange perversity in man ! — that a feature which 
the hand of the Creator has stamped upon the African 
through the secondary causes of location and climate, 



17 

should be laid hold of, as a reason to oppress and degrade 
him ! 

2. The slave is held as a personal chattel ; and in most 
of the slave states, is liable at all times, to be sold, re- 
moved, mortgaged, or leased, at the will of the master or 
his executors, or at the suit of creditors. This feature of 
American slavery, as we shall presently see, opens a door 
to the internal traffic, in the exercise of which are prac- 
tised the greatest enormities. 

3. The master may determine the kind, quantity, and 
time of the slave's labor. 

4. The master may supply the slave with such food, 
and clothing only, both as to quality and quantity, as he may 
think proper, or find convenient. 

5. The master may, at his discretion, inflict any pun- 
ishment upon the person of his slave. (This, of course, 
excludes power over life or limb.) There are, we believe, 
laws to protect the slave from the inflictions of cruel mas- 
ters, &c. — but the universal principle pervading the slave 
states, that no colored person can be a witness in any case, 
against a white man, renders all such laws a dead letter, 
except, perhaps, in very extreme cases. 

6. Slaves have no legal rights of property in things real 
or personal : but whatever they may acquire, belongs in 
point of law, to their masters. 

7. A slave cannot be a party before a judicial tribunal, 
in any species of action against his master. 

8. Slaves cannot redeem themselves : and in several of 
the states emancipation without removal is prohibited. 

9. If injured by third persons, their owners only may 
brino; suits, and recover damages. 

10. Slaves can make no contract, nor be party to a civil 
suit, nor be witnesses against a white person. 

2* 



18 

11. The benefits of education are mostly withheld from 
the slave, and in some of the Southern states, to teach him 
is punished as a crime. The means of moral and religious 
instruction are seldom, or but sparingly, granted him.* 

12. No effectual provision is made to restrain the slaves 
from the grossest licentiousness, by laws to encourage mar- 
riage, or by other means. 

13. Slaves escaping from their masters can be recovered 
within any part of the United States, by an Act of Congress, 
called the Fugitive law : by which the person claimed can 
be brought by warrant before a Justice of the Peace, or 
Judge of the Court : to either of ivhom is given the power 
to determine the right of the claimant. Any person inter- 
fering in the removal of the individual thus claimed, is lia- 
ble to a penalty of five hundred dollars. 

By this law, a human being ranks in value, or dignity, 
inferior to property, which cannot he recovered, without a 
trial by jury.~\ Thousands of colored freemen have been, 
enslaved for life, under cover of this law, which leaves a 
wide door open for fraud and collusion. :f 

Such is negro slavery in the free Republican States 
of America. The servitude among the Hebrews, compared 
to it, was a mild, patriarchal government. Nor can it 
compete in point of lenity, with the slavery of the Atheni- 
ans, the Cretans, or the ancient Germans. Among the an- 
cients, there was, in most cases, some mode of escape ; a 
place of refuge from a cruel master ; but there is neither 

* American Quarterly Review. No. 29, p. 91. 

+ Of late years, three or four of the free states have granted a jury 
trial to the party claimed. 

\ We give these outlines as the general or prevailing features of the 
institution. In some of the States, modifications exist, which soften 
its asperities. 



19 

temple nor sanctuary where the American slave can take 
shelter : the Fugitive law pursues him to the utmost extent 
of the Union. A doubt may well be entertained, whether 
American Slavery be not equal to, or even more cruel than 
the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt, for whose redemp- 
tion such stupendous miracles were performed, bringing 
upon their oppressors such signal judgments. 

Even between the Spartan slaves or Helots, and that 
of our own, there are points of comparison where the 
balance will be found against us. The Helots possessed 
the privilege of accumulating property, whereas, our slaves 
have nothing they can call their own but their sufferings 
and their sorrows. The Helots could not be sold out of the 
small state where they dwelt ; and familiy ties were not li- 
able to be burst asunder ; the reverse of this prevails with us 
to such an extent as to constitute one of the greatest refine- 
ments of cruelty, belonging to American slavery. 

The same may be said of the Roman slaves, the most 
abused of all the slaves of antiquity. 

(1.) No particular color or origin marked him out for 
proscription. 

(2.) He was often allowed by the master to accumulate 
property, called the slave's peculium, on which he traded 
for his own benefit. 

(3.) In the time of Augustus, the slave was heard, and 
his testimony admitted against his master. 

(4.) Their heathen temples afforded them safety. It was 
deemed an act of sacrilege to drag them thence. 

(5.) Many of them were carefully instructed, and under 
the Christian Emperors their spiritual welfare was not ne- 
glected. 

(6.) No laws existed against their being emancipated or 
instructed. 

(7.) A large share of human happiness, or misery, arises 



20 

from comparison. The severe Spartan discipline imposed 
on the free, made the sufferings of the slave to be less felt. 
The master and slave experienced equally the disadvan- 
tages of the semi-barbarous state, and in despotic govern- 
ments the freeman was made to feel, as well as the slave, 
the exercise of arbitrary power. But the American slave 
must have his sufferings enhanced when he contrasts his 
condition with that of the whites around him. He beholds 
the latter, placed on an eminence where despotic power 
cannot reach them, and in full possession of" liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness," and all the means of human enjoy- 
ment, and he bemoans the more his sad condition. 

But what if semi-barbarous and idolatrous nations have, 
in some cases, exceeded us in cruelty to their slaves ?— 
Shall the measure of justice and mercy of those nations — 
nations who sat in darkness, and worshipped gods of wood 
and stone — and who bowed down before the crocodile and the 
ox — shall their measure be the measure of a people who 
enjoy all the advantages of Christian light and knowledge 
— who have been outwardly blessed above all other nations 
of the earth ? 

In process of time, the inhabitants of these American co- 
lonies began to feel, in their turn, the rod of oppression, by 
the invasion of their civil rights on the part of the mother 
country, and they resolved on resistance by an appeal to 
arms. The approach of a great national calamity now 
weighed heavily upon their minds : for they were few in 
number, and deficient in resources. Humbled by the pros- 
pect before them, and feeling their weakness and their need, 
J hey appealed to the great Ruler of the world for the justice 
of their cause. But how propitiate this righteous Judge ? 
For while making this solemn appeal, they were inflicting 
a flagrant art of injustice on half a million of their fellow 
beings. How appear before Him as supplicants, whilst 



21 

themselves were wielding a rod over these infinitely more 
oppressive than that of which they complained, and daily 
adding to that number, by a most iniquitous trade ? Thence, 
the response which they received or felt from the Divine or- 
acle, was doubtless of the same import, with that formerly 
announced through the Jewish seer. " Is not this the fast 
that I have chosen ? to loose the bands of wickedness, to un- 
do the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, 
and that ye break every yoke." — " Then shalt thou call, 
and he Lord sh ill answer." — "Then shall thy light rise 
in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon-day." 

Such were the circumstances, and such, we believe were 
the impressions of the Congress of 1774, when they pledged 
themselves and the nation, in the following manner: 

We will neither import nor purchase any slaves im- 
" ported after the first of December next; after which 
" time, we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and 
" will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we 
"hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufuc- 
" tures to those who are concerned in it." 

This was a good beginning, and for some years, the 
work of reform advanced. Societies were organized for 
the protection of the free blacks, and the emancipation of 
the slaves, both in the north and south : including amono; 
the active members, many of the leading and most influen- 
tial men in the nation. The equality of human rights was 
everywhere recognized and loudly proclaimed. Petitions 
against slavery were respectfully received and considered 
by the new government ; and in short, such measures were 
ultimately adopted, as insured the emancipation of the slaves 
in all the states north of Delaware. Thus the plighted 
faith of the nation, given in the hour of calamity, was so far 
kept inviolate. 



22 

But the American people were now to be subjected to a 
trial, which proved more severe than that through which 
they had lately passed— the trial of prosperity. The ar- 
duous struggle was over; the danger had vanished; an in- 
dependent government was established. 

But the form called the confederation, having been found, 
upon trial, in many respects defective, a convention of De- 
legates from all the States met in Philadelphia, in the year 
1787, to frame a new Constitution. In the course of the 
debates in this body, the slave question was brought up. 
Two of the slaveholding states, South Carolina and Georgia, 
wished to secure to themselves the right of importing slaves. 
This subject, in connexion with another, was finally refer- 
red to a committee of one from each State. Their report, 
called a compromise, with some amendments was adopted, 
and now forms a part of our Constitution, and is as follows: 

" The migration or importation of such persons, as any 
of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall 
not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808, 
but a tax, or duty, may be imposed on such importation 
not exceeding ten dollars for each person." 

The states in favor of allowing the importation were 
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, 
North and South Carolina, and Georgia. Those against 
it, were New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virgi- 
nia. New York, it would appear did not vote,* and 
Rhode Island, was not represented in the convention. In 
the framing of this provision, the circumlocution resorted 
to, to avoid the word slave, is worthy of note. The con- 
vention, no doubt, were deeply sensible of the glaring in- 
congruity of inserting such a word in an instrument, the 
great object of which they had declared to be, in the pream- 

* Pitkins' Hist. vol. 11. p. 262. 



23 

ble thereto, to establish justice, and secure the blessings of 
liberty. 

This fatal act of the convention continued the African 
slave-trade for twenty years longer, in direct violation of 
the solemn pledge given by the Congress of 1774. It 
opened a door for an extensive domestic traffic in slaves, 
and their consequent introduction into new states. It 
formed, in short, the first link in the chain of causes, that 
has expanded what was then comparatively but a germ of 
evil, and within control, into one of giant stature, confound- 
ing the sagacity of the statesman, withering the hopes of 
the Christian, and exciting the just fears of all, for the 
peace, permanency, and happiness of the American Union. 

As the population of the United States increased, the 
Federal Government admitted new states into the Union. 
The purchase of Louisiana, a large portion of it as lux- 
uriant in its soil as it was vast in its extent, opened a new 
field Cor the industry and enterprise of our people, and in 
1819, Missouri, a district forming a part of the new pur- 
chase, made application to Congress for admission, and a 
bill was accordingly framed, and read in the House. An 
amendment being proposed excluding slavery from the 
said state, a warm debate ensued, which was protracted 
through a part of two sessions, and in the issue of which 
the country manifested an intense interest. It was felt to 
be the final struggle to prevent the diffusion of a great 
moral and political evil throughout that fair and productive 
region. As it respected Missouri, the effort failed ; but a 
restriction was obtained, by what has been termed a com- 
promise, limiting slavery in the remainder of the territory, 
to the south of the thirty-sixth and a half degree of North 
latitude. 

At the period of the Revolution, there were about four 



24 

hundred and fifty thousand slaves, in the six states south 
of Pennsylvania ; to those, which still remain to be slave 
states, seven more have been added, of the thirteen admit- 
ted since that period. Thus slavery is now established in 
thirteen states, containing more than two million five-hun- 
dred thousand slaves, diffused over a surface of about five 
hundred and seventy thousand square miles, or nearly 
double the extent of the thirteen original states. Besides 
these states, we have three slave territories : Florida, that 
part of the Missouri Territory south of the thirty-sixth and 
a half degree of north latitude, and the District of Colum- 
bia ; all of which contain a number of slaves ; and over 
one hundred and eighty thousand square miles of surface. 
Having thus given a brief view of the rise, progress, and 
character of slavery in the United States, we proceed to 
speak of the internal or domestic traffic. 

The slave region in the United States now stretches 
over a surface of seven hundred and fifty thousand square 
miles, or nearly five hundred millions of acres, an extent 
of territory, more than double that of the whole thirteen 
original states. 

Those among the old states which depended mainly 
on slave labor, were Maryland, Virginia, North and 
South Carolina, and Georgia. As long as the staple of 
any state consisted of tobacco, rice, or cotton, the labor 
of slaves was deemed profitable, and great numbers of them 
were employed on the plantations where they were born 
and raised ; and thus were retained in their own neigh- 
borhoods. 

But a powerful cause now began to operate, in effecting 
an important change in the agricultural operations of seve- 
ral of the slave states ; we mean the increasing impover- 
ishment of the lands, and the consequent inability of the 



25 

cultivators, to compete with the rich soil of the new settle- 
ments. Hence, their attention became directed to the rais- 
ing of bread stuffs, and other provisions ; thus lessening 
the demand for slave labor. But in the mean time, the 
rapid clearing and cultivation of the new states, producing 
heavy crops of cane and cotton, and affording immense 
profits to the planters, together with the abolition of the 
foreign trade by Congress in 1808, and in 1820 making it 
piracy and punishable with death ; all combined greatly to 
increase the demand, and to enhance the price of slaves, 
thus, not only was a most lucrative market opened for the 
supernumerary slaves in the old states, but a strong induce- 
ment offered to rear them for sale. Such was the origin of 
the extensive internal traffic in slaves, which has been car- 
ried on for many years in these states ; a traffic scarcely 
exceeded, in the extent of its iniquity and barbarity by the 
foreign slave trade itself. 

The immediate causes of the internal trade, arise from 
the laws which give the master the power of selling his 
slaves, and which allow of their deportation, like bales of 
cotton, from state to state, or to any part of the slave re- 
gion. 

The domestic slave trade receives supplies from all the 
states in the Union where the African complexion is found. 
Virginia alone rears six thousand annually for this traffic 
besides several thousand supernumerary ; Tennessee, al- 
though a young state, a considerable number ; and other 
states, their surplus slave population in different propor- 
tions. 

The regular trader limits his operations to the slave 
states ; carries them on in open day ; and shamelessly 
advertises in the public papers, his occupation, name, 
residence, and terms. The sphere of action of the kid- 

3 



26 

napper is much more extensive ; they are found in every 
part of the country, preying alike upon the freeman and 
the slave, and are employed in their vocation both night 
and day ! In the day, they often single out their victims, 
and in the night they secure them, and bear them off. In 
other cases, having first ascertained the practicability of his 
plan, he obtains a warrant by virtue of the well known 
fugitive law ; drags the individual he had marked out be- 
fore a Justice of the Peace, and by the aid of an accom- 
plice, and a forged advertisement prepared beforehand, suc- 
ceeds in identifying the man with the pretended slave thus 
advertised, and of whom he is in search. The Justice im- 
posed upon in this manner, or conniving at the fraud, 
grants him the required documents ; and under the protec~ 
tion of the aforesaid law, this victim of barbarity is soon 
removed beyond the reach of inquiry. This may serve as 
one example of the many artful expedients resorted to by 
the kidnapper to effect his purpose. We have here de- 
scribed him, as operating in the free states. In the slave 
region he finds less difficulty in the exercise of his calling. 
The reader may remember, that there, every colored man 
is, in the eye of the law, a slave until the contrary is prov- 
ed ; and further, that no coloi^ed person, bond or free, can 
be a witness against a white man. Hence, every freeman 
who has not a white skin to attest his title to liberty, must 
carry the proof of it, written or printed, in his pocket. The 
kidnapper, therefore, has only to obtain this proof by force 
or fraud from the man whom he has marked out for his 
prey, and his cruel purpose is readily accomplished. The 
scenes thus exhibited in most parts of our country, appear 
in a still more offensive and concentrated form, at the seat 
of government, which has been made, for years past, the 
head quarters of this traffic. The District of Columbia, 



27 

where the functions of every department of our free govern- 
ment are exercised, and over which the National Legisla- 
ture has exclusive jurisdiction, should, at the least, be an 
asylum where the rights of freemen might repose in securi- 
ty ; exhibiting to the world, an exemplification of the 
working of our free institutions, without a jar, or an in- 
congruity. 

The following history lifts the veil, and presents a 
startling and mortifying contrast. 

The District of Columbia was ceded to the United States 
by Maryland and Virginia, and the laws in respect to 
slavery have been left with little alteration, as they were 
at the time of the cession about the close of the last century. 
There is, however, in addition to these laws an enactment 
of the city of Washington, by virtue of authority delegat- 
ed by Congress, bearing date the 28th of July, 1831, 
granting licences to those " who trade or traffic in slaves 
for profit, on the payment of four hundred dollars" ! ! ! 
Since the cession, numerous corruptions have grown up 
unheeded, and slave dealers and kidnappers, gaining con- 
fidence from impunity or the sanction of law, have made 
the seat of the general goverment their head-quarters for 
carrying on the domestic slave trade. Various advertise- 
ments, offering cash for " negroes," are contained in the 
public prints of that city in the face of Congress and the 
world, and indicate the openness and extent of the traffic. 
Thus — 

" Vice is a monster of so frightful mein, 

As to be hated, needs but to be seen. 

But seen too oft, familiar with her face, 

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.'' 

Officers of the general government are employed, and the 
public prisons used, in carrying on the trade. Private and 



28 

secret prisons also exist in the District, for the same pur- 
pose. The trade is not confined to slaves for life. Many 
who have but a limited time to serve, are kidnapped, and 
sent off. Free persons of color coming into the District, 
and being unable, from ignorance or fraud, to prove their 
freedom, are thrown into jail ; no owner appears, and in- 
stead of being discharged and compensated for the injury 
done them, are sold into slavery, to pay jail fees! In a 
case of this kind, two respectable citizens went forward to 
the deputy marshal!, and offered their security for the fees, 
if he would give them time to obtain the proofs of the man's 
freedom ; but the deputy marsball refused the delay, and 
he was sold to a dealer, and carried off. Dr. Torrey found 
a number of free blacks confined in a garret in Washing- 
ton city, and among the rest a young widow, a free wo- 
man, with a child at the breast, who had been seized in a 
state of pregnancy but a few days after the death of her 
husband, dragged from her bed, and without clothes, and 
a rope ronnd her neck, taken to a tavern in Maryland ; 
and thence to the place where she was found. Her pur- 
chaser had left her a few weeks, and had gone to the Eas- 
tern shore in search of more black people, in order to make 
up a drove for Georgia. During this interval, the Doctor 
obtained proofs of the freedom of the whole company, and 
they were released. 

A freeman was seized, ignorant and friendless, and 
thrown into jail, where his legs became so frozen, that 
when released, he walked upon his knees a cripple for the 
remainder of his life. 

Another freeman had married a slave, by whom he had 
a family of children. Being iudustrious and frugal, he was 
enabled to purchase his wife and children. On returning 
to his family after some days absence in his lawful occu- 



29 

pations, he found his house empty. His family had all 
been kidnapped and carried off in his absence. In unut- 
terable distress, he applied to the former owner, (a humane 
man,) who went with him in pursuit of them. It was 
found that they had been lodged in one of the jails in the 
District of Columbia for a short time, but had been hurried 
away from thence, no one could tell whither, and that they 
were irrecoverably lost. 

In the prosecution of this trade, numerous devices are 
resorted to. A dealer holds an indented servant, who has 
two or three years to serve ; he causes him to be arrested 
as a runaway and thrown into jail ; after a time, he is sold 
out for his jail fees, when a trusty friend buys him in, and 
he is converted into a slave for life. Again ; this class is 
purchased at cheap rates by the slave traders, and carried 
off, where the proofs of their freedom cannot be had, and 
their protestations are unheeded. 

Instances of death from the anguish of despair ; of self- 
maiming, and suicide, by the victims to this trade, have 
occurred in the District. Scenes of human beings exposed 
at public vendue, are here exhibited and permitted by the 
laws of the general government. Almost every week, 
droves are brought into town of ten or twelve chained to- 
gether. Twenty-two or three were observed, on one oc- 
casion, to be brought out of the cellar of a small house in 
the District ; a by-stander inquired of a civil officer, how 
many slaves it was lawful to confine in a damp cellar ; the 
officer replied, " as many as it will hold." The same thing 
exists with regard to shipping them ; they may crowd as 
many in a vessel as it will hold. 

It is believed, that many thousand colored persons are 
annually transported by land and sea, from the District of 
Columbia, and parts adjacent, a considerable number of 

3* 



30 

whom are entitled to their freedom by the laws of the land. 
Advertisements are issued by the traders, of the sailing of 
slavers, at stated periods, from the port of Alexandria, in 
the District. The number transported by land and water 
to the new States have been estimated as high as 60,000 

in one year. 

Thus, it appears, that while a law of Congress exists, de- 
claring the African slave trade to be piracy, American 
slavers are fitted out at the seat of government, the time of 
their sailing with their human cargoes publicly advertised 
in one or more of the most conspicuous papers in the United 
States, and thus, the same flag which waves over and pro- 
tects the domestic slave ships and their crews, as American 
citizens, if used by the same citizens in the foreign slave, 
trade, subjects them, on due conviction of the crime, to the 
punishment of death ! 

Neither can we discern any material difference between 
the foreign and domestic slave trade. Scarcely an evil is 
seen in the former, that has not its parallel in the lat- 
ter. No inconsiderable proportion of its victims are 
freemen by the laws of the land, seized by violence, 
and carried off; the dearest ties of human nature are cruel- 
ly violated ;— husbands and wives, parents and children, 
torn asunder once and for ever ; and they doubtless feel as 
great a horror at the prospect of deportation from the land 
that gave them birth, and from their friends and relatives, 
to the far distant shores of the Missouri and the Mississippi, 
as did their forefathers in crossing the Atlantic. 

The people in the District of Columbia, have not been 
indifferent spectators of this traffic. In 1812, a Grand 
Jury at Alexandria presented this trade as a grievance, 
exhibiting a scene of wretchedness and human degradation, 
disgraceful to our characters as citizens of a free irovern- 



31 

ment. " True it is," said they, " that these dealers in the 
persons of our fellow men, collect within this district from 
various parts, numbers of those victims of slavery, and 
lodge them in some place of confinement until they have 
completed their numbers. They are then turned out in our 
streets, and exposed to view loaded with chains, as if 
they had committed some heinous ofFence against the laws." 
" We consider it a grievance that the interposition of civil 
authority cannot be had to prevent parents from being 
wrested from their offspring, and children from their parents, 
without respect to the ties of nature. We consider those 
grievances demanding legislative redress, especially the 
practice of making sale of black people, who are, by the 
will of their masters, free at the expiration of a term of 
years." 

Judge Morrell, in his charge to the Grand Jury at Wash- 
ington, in 1816, urged upon their attention the slave trade 
carried on in the District. He said, that the frequency 
with which the streets of the city had been crowded with 
manacled captives, sometimes even on the Sabbath, could 
not fail to shock the feelings of all humane persons ; that it 
was repugnant to the spirit of our political institutions, and 
the rights of man ; and he believed, was calculated to im- 
pair the public morals, by familiarizing scenes of cruelty 
to the minds of youth." 

A petition was presented to the Congress of 1828, signed 
by more than one thousand inhabitants of the District, 
praying for the gradual abolition of slavery therein. A 
member of Congress from Virginia, in 1816, introduced a 
resolution into the House, « that a committee be appointed 
to inquire into the existence of an inhuman and illegal traf- 
fic in slaves, carried on in and through the District of Co- 
lumbia, and report whether any, or what measures, are no- 



32 

cessary to put a stop to the same. Numerous petitions 
have, for years past, been presented to Congress from dif- 
ferent parts of the country on the same subject, but all in 
vain. These atrocious crimes continue to be perpetrated 
to this very hour. While we are writing, a free colored 
man lies in the jail at Alexandria, having been seized and 
drao-cred from on board a vessel trading from Delaware to 
that port. Proofs of his freedom have been forwarded, but 
his keepers refuse to deliver him up until his jail fees are 
paid. A just fear is entertained that he will share the fate 
of thousands of his brethren before the money can be sent 
on for his release. Another freeman has just arrived in 
Wilmington, who was seized, a few months ago, by three 
men in open day, while cutting wood in a secluded spot, 
near Smyrna, in Delaware state. They bound him with 
ropes, and as soon as night closed in, a carriage came up, 
into which he was forced, and hurried off. Thus far we 
have endeavored to delineate the features of negro slavery ? 
and its action upon those who are within the reach of its 
iron grasp ; and great as we have found the evil to be, we 
have yet seen but a part, and perhaps the smaller part of 
the mischief of which it is capable. Grant it the character 
and progression which it has maintained among us for 
the last fifty years, to continue without control, (and con- 
trolled, we believe, it cannot be, except by the emancipation 
of the slaves) and the final result in all human probability 
will be, such a disorder or destruction of all the moral ele- 
ments that sustain and bind human society together, that a 
general convulsion throughout those states where it prevails, 
must be the consequence. 

The secondary causes which are operative in bringing 
it about, are set forth in a speech of Thomas Marshall, a 
son of Judge Marshall, in the legislature of Virginia — of 



33 

that Virginia, once the " fairest region of America ; every 
word of which," says the Reviewer, " is true."* 

" Wherefore then object to slavery 1 Because it is 
ruinous to the whites — retards improvement — roots out an 
industrious population — banishes the yeomanry of the 
country — deprives the spinner, the weaver, the smith, the 
shoemaker, the carpenter, of employment and support. 
This evil admits of no remedy ; it is increasing, and will 
continue to increase, until the whole country will be inun- 
dated with one black wave, covering its whole extent, with 
a few white faces here and there floating on the surface. 
The master has no capital but what is vested in [slaves;] 
the father, instead of being richer for his sons, is at a loss 
to provide for them — there is no diversity of occupations, 
no incentive to enterprise. Labor of every species is dis- 
reputable, because performed mostly by slaves. Our towns 
are stationary, our villages almost everywhere declining, 
and the general aspect of the country marks the curse of 
an idle, wasteful, reckless population, who have no inter- 
est in the soil, and care not how much it is impoverished. 
Public improvements are neglected, and the entire continent 
does not present a region for which nature has done so much, 
and art so little. If cultivated by free labor, the soil of Vir- 
ginia is capable of sustaining a dense population, among 
whom labor would be honorable, and where the 'busy hum of 
men' would tell that all were happy, and that all were free." 
There is one evil which is not adverted to in the above 
catalogue— the increasing danger of a servile insurrection ; 
to which may be added, the constant dread of such an 
event, with the consciousness of its becoming yearly, more 
and more within the reach of probability. No truth, we 
think, is now better established than this— that the slaves 

* American Quarterly Review, Vol. 24, p. 392. 



34 

increase faster than the whites. Thus, (notwithstanding the 
constant drain of her slaves going on in Virginia to supply 
the plantations of the new states,) the slaves have so multi- 
plied, that, though east of the Blue Ridge in 1790 the 
whites had a majority, of twenty-five thousand, in 1830, the 
blacks had grown to a majority of eighty-one thousand ! 

Few, if any, of the pro-slavery writers have defended the 
abstract right over slaves, or have been willing to relin- 
quish the hope of the final eradication of slavery. That it 
cannot be perpetual, is certain. The continual increase of 
numbers must produce, in process of time, such a fall in the 
price of labor, and a consequent rise in that of provisions, 
that the.cost of rearing a slave will exceed the price of his 
labor. The coming of this event must be expedited by the 
progressive reduction of the fertility of the soil, the never- 
failing effect of slavery. When it does arrive, no other al- 
ternative will be left to the holder of slaves than emancipa- 
tion or famine. But the Christian moralist may, with rea- 
son, entertain the belief, that the action of these causes will 
be too slow for the requisitions of Divine justice, and that 
the rod of oppression will be broken, as in the case of the 
Egyptian tyrant, by means less tardy in their operations ! 

Some writers, in defence of slavery, tell us, that it is a 
necessary evil that must be borne with : one which we 
have had no hand in creating, and are not competent to re- 
medy : that emancipation without removal would produce 
greater evils than all the evils of slavery. 

It is true, that the mother country forced the slaves upon 
several of her colonies: but it is also true, that a large amount 
of capital was employed by the Northern states in the fo- 
reign slave trade — that northern votes secured a majority 
in the Convention, for continuing the importation of slaves 



35 

into the United States for twenty years longer — and that 
Northern votes in Congress turned the scale in favor of 
the introduction of slavery into the extensive and fertile 
territories of Missouri and Arkansas. All, therefore, are 
guilty ; the whole nation is implicated in creating and sus- 
taining negro slavery; but we leave it to Him, who "sound- 
eth the reins and thoughts of men," to decide where the 
balance of iniquity preponderates. 

Emancipation forces itself upon all minds, as the only 
radical cure for slavery — the negro slavery of America, 
fruitful in present, and pregnant with future evils. The 
moralist sees it debasing the soul of its victim, created for 
the noblest purpose, to a level with the brute, and corrupt- 
ing the minds of those who wield its iron sceptre. The 
Christian beholds its overgrown iniquities, and fears the 
consequence, for he knows that " God is just, and will 
break in pieces the oppressor." The politician sees it to 
be an uncompromising enemy to national wealth, dependent 
as it must be on industry and economy ; for the slave is 
indolent and improvident — producing as little, and con- 
sumincr as much as he can. He casts his eye over Vir- 
ginia, who in days past sat as a queen among nations ; — 
he compares her with her sister Pennsylvania, two hun- 
dred years younger than she, and he finds the latter great- 
ly in advance in population — in the price of her lands — in 
agriculture, commerce and manufacturers, — in roads, 
bridges, and all public improvements : — in short, he sees 
the land that had " blossomed as the rose," converted into 
a wilderness ; instead of the fir-tree, has come up the 
thorn, and instead of the myrtle tree, has come up the 
briar — an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off; for, as 
he extends his view, he finds the painful truth demonstrat- 
ed, that wherever slaverv has prevailed, the same evils 



36 

have been inflicted, that have humbled and impoverished 
the once noble state of Virginia, 

Thus, of all persons, emancipation presses itself with 
most urgency upon slave-holders. Let it not be believed 
that " it would produce greater evils than all the evils of 
slavery." This opinion is drawn, probably, from events 
that occurred in St. Domingo — events caused, we believe, 
by the vacillating legislation of the French government, 
and the improper conduct of its agents, and of the planters 
in that Island. Happily, another experiment has been 
made in the same region, and with very different results ; 
which we shall now in a brief manner, proceed to lay be- 
fore the reader, extracted from a work, entitled, " Fami- 
liar letters to Henry Clay of Kentucky, describing a winter 
in the West Indies, by Joseph John Gurney." — 1840. 

The first island visited by our author, was Tortola, 
with a population of five thousand ; of which about two 
hundred only are white. No inconvenience was felt, that 
he could discover, from this disparity in numbers, and free- 
dom was reported to be working well. A school for black 
children, which he entered, was found to be satisfactory. 
In the jail, there was one prisoner only, with the jailor and 
the judge. Not a single criminal indictment was found, at 
the last three courts. Wm. R. Isaacs, the former Presi- 
dent of the Island, had fifteen hundred free negroes under 
his care. He stated of his own accord, that his laborers 
were working well. " I have," said he, " no complaint to 
make." A large proportion of the island had passed out 
of the hands of the proprietors, into those of the merchant 
and money-lender, which was taken for conclusive evidence 
against slavery. He visited President Isaac's property, 
saw " a large company of negroes, male and female, 
heartily at work holing" — and "their work was excellent." 



37 

Wages were small ; only six-pence sterling per day ; but 
their privileges, viz. a cottage, good provision grounds, 
and pasture for their stock, free, were worth at least 
double the amount of their wages. 

The next Island visited, was St. Christopher. Robert 
Claxton, the solicitor-general of the colony, " a gentleman 
of great respectability and intelligence," informed the 
visitors, that six years ago, and just before the act of eman- 
cipation — a period of "great depression and alarm — (such 
alarm as our southern brethren are wont to indulge in, at 
the thought of emancipation) a certain property, with the 
slaves upon it, was worth only two thousand pounds ; "but 
now," said the owner, " I would not sell it foi six thou- 
sand." This rise was found to be " general and consider- 
able." " I asked President Crook, and some other per- 
sons," says the author, " whether there was a single indi- 
vidual on the island, who wished for the restoration of 
slavery." Answer, " Certainly not one." Wages seven 
pence to ninepence sterling, besides the usual privileges. 
"But the negroes have no difficulty in earning from two to 
three shillings per day, by job-work:' "The change for the 
better," said the Methodist minister, Cudman, "in the dress, 
demeanor, and welfare of the people, is prodigious:' The 
difficulty experienced by the " gentry living in the town, 
in procuring fowls, .eggs, &c. from the negroes, is con- 
siderably increased. The reason is well known — the 
laborers make use of them for home consumption. Mar- 
riage is now become frequent among them, and a profu- 
sion of eggs is expended on their wedding cakes !" There 
are nine churches on the island, containing nearly six 
thousand members. The Lieutenant-Governor stated, that 
he had just received the reports of the stipendiary magis- 
trates, as to the general state of their respective districts on 

3 



38 

this island, and they were, without exception, most cheer- 
ing and satisfactory. The author concluded his visit as 
before, in holding two religious meetings, thronged to ex- 
cess ; but strict attention, and good order prevailed. 

The author passed by Nevis and Monserrat on account 
of the fever prevalent there; but the report of the stipen- 
diary magistrate of Nevis, to the Governor-General, for the 
half-year ending with the eleventh month, (Nov.) 1839, 
states that " the conduct of the laborers was peaceable and 
orderly, and that a good understanding generally prevail- 
ed, between them and their employers — that schools are 
numerous and well attended, marriages frequent, and the 
sabbath well observed." The report from H. Hamilton, 
President of Monserrat, to Sir Wm. Col brook, dated Jan. 10, 
1840, says, " It affords me great satisfaction to report to 
your Excellency the good and orderly conduct of our la- 
boring population. During the Christmas holidays, our 
churches and chapels were crowded to excess by a well- 
dressed peasantry, and our jail nearly untenanted." 

The author also visited Antigua and Jamaica ; but our 
space is too limited, to follow him in his most cheering, 
and deeply interesting narrative. It furnishes, in sub- 
stance, the same results as stated in the foregoing account. 
He every where found a " rapid increase, and vast extent 
of elementary and Christian education — schools for infants, 
young persons and, adults, multiplying in every direction — 
a decided diminution, and, in many districts, almost an ex- 
tinction of crime — a happy change of the general, and 
nearly universal practice of concubinage, for the equally 
general adoption of marriage" — the blessed fruits of the 
diffusion of vital Christianity, with her " handmaid," liber- 
ty, among this so lately poor, oppressed, debased, and de- 
graded race of men. In a physical and political point of 



39 

view, the change was seen to be equally striking. The 
external comforts of the laborers were increased tenfold ; 
the price of land, and all kinds of property, steadily ad- 
vancing ; repairs and improvements, not thought of under 
slavery, undertaken with that spirit of enterprise found 
only in the breasts of freemen. 

The author concludes his narrative by concentrating the 
whole subject under five heads. 

1st. The emancipated negroes are working well on the 
estates of their old masters. 

2d. The debit in account of the planters is almost as 
much decreased as are his crosses and cares. One planter 
stated, that he had rather, for the profit's sake, make sixty 
tierces of coffee under freedom, than one hundred and twen- 
ty under slavery. 

3d. Real property risen, and is rising in value. 
4th. The personal comforts of the laboring population 
under freedom are multiplied tenfold. 

5th, and lastly. The moral and religious improvement 
of this people under freedom is more than equal to the in- 
crease of their comforts. 

We ought not to omit mentioning the satisfaction and 
gratitude manifested by the people, on account of the visit 
paid them by their philanthropic friend. " One woman," 
says he, " in particular, was at a loss to express the multi- 
tude of her good wishes. As far as I could understand her 
patois, they were, that " sweet massa might be well fed 
on his journey, and supplied with plenty of the Holy Spirit 
for his work in the gospel." 

On the subject of free labor, as compared with slave la- 
bor, the author has the following remarks. 

" Many a time have I seen the slaves of Virginia and 
the Carolinas at work in the fields, under the surveillance 



40 

of a white overseer, and I could not believe that the work 
obtained was in quantity comparable to that of free men ; 
for the slaves were laboring without vigor, and the over- 
seer was doing nothing. On inquiry, in South Carolina 
especially, I found that the quantity of work procured from 
the slaves was even much less than I had anticipated. I 
understood, that in a body of slaves on any estate, the pro- 
portion in active service, at any given time, is not greater 
in America than it was in the West Indies. There are the 
old, the infirm, the sick, the shammers of sickness, the mo- 
thers of young children, &c, — all these belong to the dead 
weight, and they leave about one-third of the black popu- 
lation in actual operation. Now this operative class has 
no stimulus to labor, except compulsion, i. e. the whip ; 
and people neither will nor can perform, by compulsion, an 
average quantity of continuous work. That they should 
do so, is contrary to the laws of nature, and to the consti- 
tution, not only of the negro, but of all mankind. The re- 
sult is, that the cotton and rice planters of Georgia and 
South Carolina are very generally contenting themselves 
with half a day's work from their negroes. Their task is 
finished by twelve, one, or two o'clock ; and for the rest of 
the day they are left to themselves. Most willingly do I 
allow, that this arrangement is to the credit of the benevo- 
lence of their masters, though I fear that this prevailing 
kindness has its occasional painful exceptions ; but the plain 
fact is, that the slave cannot fairly do more, or much more, 
than he is now doing. Compel him to perform the task of 
a freeman, and you drive him to death. Where the only 
stimulus to exertion which survives under slavery, I mean 
compulsion, is withdrawn, the work, of course, becomes 
ight in proportion." 
"It appears, then, that the work obtained from three hundred 



41 

slaves in your Southern states, cannot be estimated as more 
in quantity than the fair day's labor, on wages, of one-sixth 
of their number, that is, of fifty freemen. But the whole 
three hundred slaves must be supported ; and the expense 
of supporting them in your states is vastly greater than it 
was in the West Indies. I was surprised to hear, on ex- 
cellent authority, when lately in South Carolina, that the 
average expense of maintaining a slave, on estates where 
they are liberally treated, is not less than fifty dollars per 

annum." 

We think the mere maintenance is here overrated, per- 
haps ; and the estimate of fifty freemen as equal to three 
hundred slaves may be considered as an underrate of slave 
labor. The average cost of a slave is now not less than 
five hundred dollars, the interest of which is thirty dollars. 
The average serviceable period of a slave's life does not ex- 
ceed twenty-one years, counting from his maturity ; his an- 
nual depreciation, therefore, is twenty-four dollars, nearly. 
His clothing can scarcely be less than sixteen dollars a 
a year. The incidental expenses of medical attendance, 
average overseership, and loss of time by sickness, running 
away, &c, may be put at sixteen dollars more ; which, to- 
gether, make an annual amount of eighty-five dollars. 
What the slave consumes, and what he wastes by omission 
and commission, will keep a free laborer, and the wages of 
the latter will not rate over eighty-five dollars a year in 
the South. But the slave does, on an average, only three- 
fourths the labor of a freeman at most, leaving a balance 
against each slave of twenty-one dollars per annum. To 
this must be added the slave's keeping when past labor, the 
progressive impoverishment of the land under slavery, and 
the many vexations that accompany the system, independ- 
ent of its moral evils. 

3* 



42 

When the author returned to the United States, he visit- 
ed Washington, and had an interview with some of his 
southern friends, to whom he related the results of the West 
India experiment. 

It was listened to with the greatest attention, and after it 
had been brought to a close, a belief was expressed, not on- 
ly in the accuracy of the relation itself, but in that of the 
live points, partly pecuniary and partly physical and 
moral, on which it furnished such ample evidences of the 
favorable working of freedom. But an effort was made to 
show, in reply, that the emancipation of the blacks in the 
West Indies was safe to the white inhabitants, only because 
it was guarded by the strong arm of Great Britain — that 
the two races are so distinct and opposite that, without the 
intervention of such power, they could not be expected to 
live together in peace, in the capacity of free men — that 
where the blacks preponderate in numbers, the whites 
would be overwhelmed — that where the numbers are equal, 
there would arise interminable violence and strife — that in 
America, therefore, the political objections to the abolition 
of slavery are not to be surmounted. 

These arguments the author replies to, as follows : — 

" First, with regard to Jamaica, the strong arm of the 
British government was indeed considered necessary for 
the protection of the whites during slavery, when the plant- 
ers and their families were on the edge of a volcano which 
might any day explode ; and, notwithstanding that protec- 
tion, I believe it may truly be said, that an explosion must 
long since have taken place, had it not been for the unri- 
valled patience and forbearance of the negro race. But 
now, under freedom, the volcano is extinguished ; the plant- 
ers and their families are in perfect safety ; the protecting 
arm of a third party is no longer requisite, and, to a great 



43 

extent, it has already been withdrawn. We were thoroughly- 
satisfied, in all the islands which we visited, that the few 
troops remaining in them were, in a political point of view, 
utterly needless, and might be withdrawn, to a man, with 
entire impunity ; and this, I believe, is the general opinion 
of the planters themselves. In the mean time, we did not 
find that any inconvenience is arising from the constitu- 
tutional difference of the two races. Certainly there is no 
antipathy of the blacks towards the whites, but rather the 
feelings of respect, deference, and affection ; and, on the 
other hand, the prejudices of the whites against the blacks 
is greatly on the decline." 

" That the position of things which I have now described 
as existing in the West Indies, is one of harmlessness and 
safety, cannot reasonably be denied. Experience has al- 
ready proved it to be so, to a considerable extent. Nor 
can I perceive a single sound reason why it should be 
otherwise, were it tried in the slave states of your own 
Union." 

" While it is obvious that the juxtaposition of the two 
races already exists, and cannot be avoided, it is to me 
equally evident, that the true danger of that juxtaposition 
lies in the relations of slavery. These are unnatural ; they 
are opposed to the eternal rule of right, and they contain 
in themselves, the seeds of violence and confusion. 

What will those now say, who oppose the emancipation 
of the slave ? The enormous political and moral evils flow- 
incr from slavery, are demonstrated and acknowledged on 
all hands. The main arguments against emancipation have 
hitherto been — that the two races cannot live together in a 
state of freedom without collision, and war, and blood- 
shed; and that the negro cannot take care of himself, if the 
inherent rights of " liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," 



44 

which slavery has wrested from him, are again restored to 
him. These arguments are now demonstrated, practical- 
ly, to be unfounded, and ought to be for ever put to rest. 

To the slaveholders here, the West Indian experiment 
must prove the more satisfactory, as the slave is exhibited 
in the required position, namely, — immediately before and 
after emancipation. This transition, too, has been greater 
than would be that of our southern slave, as the latter is, 
we believe, less debased in general than was the former. 
But it must be kept in view, that in the case of the West 
Indian slave, a strict attention to his spiritual welfare ac- 
companied, and has followed the change of his condition. 
Certainly we should not expect more of the colored, than 
of the white race. A community of the latter, wholly des- 
tiute of religious and literary instruction, would be no bet- 
ter than a mob, and life and property would there find no 
security. The same with the colored race. These moral 
elements must be interwoven with those of freedom, in or- 
der to render it a blessing, either to the one or the other. 

George Washington in his inaugural speech to the Con- 
gress in its first session, under the new Constitution, in 
New York, said: — "In the honorable qualifications of 
your body, I behold the surest pledges, that the founda- 
tion of our national policy will be laid in the pure and im- 
mutable principles of private morality, and the pre-emin- 
ence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes 
which can win the affections of its citizens, and command 
the respect of the world" And in his farewell address, he 
called the attention of the American people to the important 
truths, " that of all the dispositions and habits, which lead 
to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispen- 
sable supports ;" and that " reason and experience both for- 
bid us to expect, that national morality can prevail to the 
exclusion of religious principle." 



45 

And the Congress, in their reply to his address in New 
York, said: 

" We feel with you the strongest obligation to cherish a 
conscious responsibility for the destiny of Republican Liber- 
ty, and to seek the only sure means of preserving and re- 
commending the precious deposit in a system of legislation 
founded on the principles of honest policy, and directed 
by the spirit of diffusive patriotism." 

The foregoing history of slavery in the United States, 
shows that these pledges remain, as yet, unredeemed ; and 
the Christian inhabitants of this land — of the Christian 
world — have a right to expect that Congress and the States 
will hasten to discharge those high obligations, by adopt- 
ing such a course of legislation, as will for ever wipe off 
from "our national escutcheon the foul blots with which it 
still remains to be disfigured and disgraced. 

The " religious principle" above alluded to, constitutes 
the ground work both of national and individual morality. 
If permitted to have its full effect on the heart, it will ren- 
der man, in every possible situation, the friend of man : it 
will change the relation of master and slave from war to 
peace, for its fruits, universally, are " peace on earth, and 
good will to men." 

Many of our fellow citizens of the slave states have experi- 
enced its operation, so far as to treat their slaves with a 
degree of humanity and kindness, and to abstain from fos- 
tering the internal traffic by the breaking of family ties. 
We rejoice at any evidence of mitigation of cruelty in the 
treatment of the slave ; but we should ever bear in mind 
that the accidents or concomitants of slavery are but a part 
of the evils involved in the system — that the vesting of 
arbitrary power in one man over another, lies at the root 
of the corrupt tree. The question, therefore, being not one 



46 

of treatment merely, but of principle, no compromise should 
be made with this iniquity on the score of kind usage, 
while man is held as the property of man. 

Let the influences of this " religious principle" before 
adverted to in its partial operations, extend and prevail 
among our southern brethren, and all their mountains of 
difficulty will " skip like rams, and their little hills like 
lambs, " and the fetters of the slave will be burst asunder. 
Their waste places will be rebuilt, their wilderness will be- 
come Eden, their desert like the garden of the Lord. " Joy 
and gladness will be found therein, thanksgiving and the 
voice of melody." 



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